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THE LINGUISTICS STUDENT’S HANDBOOK 82
Possible benefits of this type of data for linguists include:
• The texts are interesting.
• The texts provide good coverage of a range of historical periods.
Possible disadvantages of this type of data include:
• The patterns illustrated in the data are not necessarily representative.
• There is a certain artificiality associated with literary styles.
• The topics discussed are often restricted.
Non-literary texts
There is a huge range of non-literary texts ranging from personal letters
through newspaper editorials to science textbooks. Each individual type has
its own advantages and disadvantages. Personal letters, for example, are more
likely to be a relatively accurate reflection of the language of the period than
are literary texts, but are rarely kept. Examination scripts are likely to contain
a large number of errors of performance (see section 8) because they are
written hurriedly and under pressure. Newspaper editorials and columns
look as though they provide relatively reliable diachronic data, but the style
of newspaper reporting has probably changed over the last century, and is
possibly continuing to evolve. Science textbooks use very unusual vocabulary,
and are likely to overuse the passive construction (which used, at least, to be
seen as part of a good scientific writing style). In the current period, many
business and government communications seem to be written in a form of
officialese, often involving particularly convoluted syntax and a strange use of
many lexical items. Nevertheless, there is so much non-literary textual material
easily available that it is often possible to find data-sources which will
match the linguist’s requirements in terms of vocabulary, grammar or text
type.
Possible benefits of this type of data include:
• Large amounts of material are available for standard languages in
developed countries.
• It is relatively easy to match sources or to get a range of sources.
• Data collection costs are relatively low.
Possible disadvantages of this type of data include:
• Very little material is available for the huge number of languages which
serve what are still fundamentally oral cultures.